


You Give Me Fever

by TheVenturer (a_summer_mind)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: But Maybe some Plot, Domestic, ENJOY IT, First Kiss, First Time, Freeform, Gratuitous Smut, Indulgent, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Poetic, Porn Without Plot, Romance, Senses, Slash, Smut, im a wordy gal, just a lot of romance kids, so it’s rambling chapters full of kissy faces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 01:50:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20145595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_summer_mind/pseuds/TheVenturer
Summary: Sherlock has always thought his senses were simply tools for his work, or things he needed only for survival. But then came John Watson, to teach the genius about all the pleasures of the four senses.Indulgent smut without plot unless you squint hard. Enjoy!





	1. SMELL

**Author's Note:**

> Only vague smut until we get to the hot and heavy “TOUCH” chapter. Enjoy!

The darkness was impenetrable, solid and unmoving but it was never palpable to John. It wasn't as if the arms which flailed at the invisible gunman from his nightmares would actually make contact with something solid and vanquish the fear of dying. Nothing could extinguish that. Nothing he knew of had the power to take that away, nothing yet.

The fear was always there and he thought that that was what made the darkness in his bedroom seem so livid and alive; made it seem to breathe with both life and death at once.

After being painfully shot awake, no pun intended, his breathing was erratic and his heart was pounding like the waves of an inescapable typhoon smashing on the rusted walls of a dilapidated building; the beating felt like it was breaking him down.

His head throbbed with blood and every time he was forced awake mercilessly he nearly cried with the effort it took just to move air in and out of his lungs. He'd collapse while lying down, he'd break while standing still, and he'd burn in cold sweat.

John was slowly deteriorating; he was that building giving out under the force of the typhoon and the typhoon was made of paradoxical darkness.

Tonight was no different: he was back in the beam of that hellishly hot middle-eastern sun, the taste of sand on his tongue and the smell of death and shot and smoke. The smell of war. Then there was a shout, a stinging in his shoulder and the smell of blood; it was too close it was too much it was…

Gone. He'd come crashing back into reality but it'd never be a relief. How could it be?

His shoulder was numb. His head was anything but; it was full of everything at once and it felt like it had been achingly expanded beyond the limit. Did a brain at war with nightmares even have a limit or was its endurance all dependent on the sanity of its consciousness?

Blinking hard and fast he looked around and saw nothing. He was back into the darkness, where the only smells were wood, rain water and whatever his friend had been experimenting on. He'd have preferred that mix that seemed boring to any exotic smell of foreign ones. At least, that was his first thought.

Breathing heavy with his arms stretched above his head, he looked to the side and found his eyes had adjusted to the blackness of night. There was a mass of dark hair directly in front of him. The actual face connected to those curls was staring the opposite way but judging by the steady slow breathing and the lack of actual words coming from that bowed mouth, John suspected his friend was asleep.

Sherlock only stopped talking, stopped observing and thinking, when he slept.

With the adrenaline of his nightmare still running its course through his veins, John swallowed hard and looked back on the past two hours:

The room downstairs, the detective's room, had been quarantined. Because the aforementioned had decided to try recreating the scene of an explosion. He suspected it was not the actual burst of fire which had scorched the victim but it was the gas, the gas now dwelling underneath them, which had suffocated the deceased. Obvious, Sherlock had said. John was inclined to believe him.

Unfortunately, he was also inclined to text Mycroft asking the best way to go about removing the gas from Sherlock's room. Mycroft had dismissed it, telling John he'd call the proper services first thing in the morning but for now, keep the younger Holmes upstairs and away from the room. Easier said than done.

The only way Sherlock had agreed to sleep was if he got to sleep on the bed. On John's bed. Which had led to an argument on propriety, which had led to a huffy detective and a frustrated doctor sleeping on either said of the latter's king-sized bed.

At least Sherlock had agreed to sleep at all, John thought ruefully. With a sigh, he allowed his hand wander lowly into that tangle of curls; the strands wrapped around the tanned fingers like vines on a tree. What harm was there in touching the man if he was fast asleep? God knows he sleeps like the dead…

John felt his eyes grow heavy at the uncensored thought. Maybe if he was gentle enough he could… he extracted his hand carefully from the jungle which was Sherlock's hair and used his elbow to try pulling himself closer to the body beside him but he hadn't thought it through; he had tried lifting himself with his bad shoulder.

He fell too hard back onto the bed and held his breathe.

"John… s'that you?"

"Yeah, you're in my bed," the doctor muttered tiredly.

"Good observation," Sherlock answered groggily. "Everything alright?"

The ashy-blonde man gave a sigh as he looked to the back of his friend. Giving in to that need he felt too tired to withhold, too consumed by to ignore, too pathetically weak to fight, he shuffled himself till his face was encased in those curly jungle vines. His hands rested on the spiny back which now stiffened.

"John-"

"Just shut up, Sherlock. Shut up and let me _be_," with that the doctor inhaled his favorite guilty pleasure, drug, scent. The dense hair of his friend smelled like lavender with a hint of ash and it should have been overly feminine or out of place but it was perfect; it was a mystery, it was unsettling and it floated with an air of posh sexual charm and that was the epitome of the man who wore it. It was dangerously romantic and curiously homely all at once and it made John's head hurt in the most glorious of ways. It soothed him while lighting his body aflame; it lit up that fucking paradoxical darkness which grew inside him every night, causing it to dissipate. This was what would keep him from dying every night and at that moment, with his eyes closing, John didn't care at all.

Sherlock didn't know what John was doing but he accepted it as something the other man needed. Needing something from someone was often followed by a request for said necessity but the younger man figured it was a mere technicality. He took things from John without asking all the time: He took the man's laughter and stored it in a bottle, hiding it away in his mind. He took his smile and made it his light bulb to illuminate every corner. He took his love and just held it like something to be treasured. There was no life, no thrill, no novelty before John; it took the older man's laughter, smile, and love for Sherlock to finally see that.

Now, as he felt the steady breathing on the back of his head [the man behind him was asleep now, obviously], Sherlock breathed in his own form of medication. John's pillows held the scent of mint [toothpaste], of strawberries [jam], of rain water [shampoo] and of sweat [John]. It should have been a distasteful mix, juxtaposing things Sherlock had no interest in but it wasn't; they melded together in a symphony of smells and he could only cherish while it played it's melody around him, wrapping itself around him like a cocoon.

As a tanned hand gently stroked his spine and another snaked around him, Sherlock felt his eyelids hanging low and heavy. Sleep was finally conquering his mind, and when he dreamed it was of nothing but a crucible of smells which gave way to one singular thought; John.

As a pale hand gently held his own, John's blissfully slumberous mind-void of any dark at all-was filled with the remembrance of lavender and ash.

Neither could recall sleeping that well, that serenely, in far too long.


	2. SEE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So romantic, so love. Big mood, oof. Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vague references to sex and LUsTy LaNgUaGE oohooo

There was a time in Sherlock's life when he didn't notice every little thing, every stain or scratch. A time when things just were; they only had a present and not a past to deduce or an easily predicted future. A time when he watched in silence as the world sped on, a never-ending film stuck in fast-forward. Everything just passed him by.

In truth, he couldn't remember such a time.

He merely assumed it existed; no infant was that smart, even if that infant was a young consulting detective.

Now, as Sherlock watched the kitchen with owl-sharp eyes, there was nothing that slipped past the man, not a speck or scar, not a cut or crutch. Certainly not a sleepy eyed, well-muscled, nicely mussed, jumper clad doctor who was cooking eggs and bacon on the stove; all the while sipping sour tea and humming some silly tune to himself.

It should have been boring; completely and utterly, entirely and infinitely boring. Mundane. Tedious. All that and more. But it wasn't; it was fascinating, novel and somehow almost erotic.

Fingering through his internal dictionary, which centered in the great library of the Mind Palace, Sherlock studied up on the word he knew little of.

Erotic is defined as an adjective "pertaining to sexual love," yet, to the great detective whose knowledge of sex was limited to readings and observations – one had to be informed, as a detector of criminals, of all crimes motives – this was an untrue definition. It wasn't that watching this short ashen-haired man who had nightmares (though as of late they had been few and far between) of desert lands, who enjoyed excessive amounts of jam on toast, who lectured him on the evils of nicotine and starvation, who… it wasn't like watching this man cook eggs and bacon was a sexual experience, or that it should have been. It wasn't really, it was simply…

It simply was something unexplainable. It made him want to approach that serenely domestic man and kiss him till they smelled burning or smoke or both. He wanted to make John Watson forget about food, about burning their flat down, about everything except the sight of his flat-mate a bit too close to breathe properly, pushed against the counter, tasting oh so sweet…

The fact it seemed like such a doable thing should have truly worried Sherlock. Instead it just heightened his already peeked fascination.

No, it wasn't an erotic sight. But there was something surprisingly sexual in the way Johns hands stirred the yoke and vegetable scramble, on the verge of ironically graceful. How his fingers gripped the wooden spoon with a sort of delicacy, like it was a scalpel and he was preforming open-heart surgery. It made the studious man in the leather chair wonder, if only for a briefly indulgent moment, what it would be like to feel those hands, those fingers, on his skin and body. It made him want to never stop looking.

It was true, John was a master of cuisine. At least, in Sherlock's mind, he was. He didn't need to cook any aphrodisiac to make eating or cooking an erotic experience, it just was; John seemed to be an aphrodisiac completely in his own right.

As if by some law of transferable feeling, the sights which were computed and processed in his eyes were sent through the nerve endings in his body. He could feel it all, if only via his mind. That skin on, in, against his own with a fine layer of sweat sprinkling out of their pores; they would be, could be, clouds watering whatever had begun growing between, sustaining something real. At least, in the great depths of Sherlock's being, this was possible. But not in reality; the great detective knew that and accepted it as a fact of life. John wasn't going to feel the same, could never know enough of this terrible sentiment boiling low in his flat-mates gut to ever feel the same. Even so, the younger man could look. And look he did.

What the not-so-completely-stupid doctor did know was the tingling of those little hairs at the nape of his neck, the way his humming was more off-key than usual, the way his eyes hurt from trying to stare at that ethereally beautiful man – who had been and was continuing to stare at him carnivorously – using only his peripheral vision. Trying desperately not to burn his bacon or the house, John was having honest troubles concentrating.

That stare was toxic, breaking down his I'm-not-gay defenses and rebuilding them, ironclad and gold decorated, to include the stipulation: Unless-You're-Sherlock-Holmes.

It was damnably predatory, bloody hot and it felt like it was turning him into a puddle; he was wax and those multicolored eyes were the flame. All the blood seemed to melt downwards and pool, then harden uncontrollably all below the belt.

Though John could never deduce or observe in such a manner as the detective himself, he knew he wasn't entirely oblivious to things around him. Over the course of many years, John was proud to say he had been subjected to many a stare or two from a lover who had wanted him. Often they ranged from "I need you," to "please take me." He was used to these stares, reveled in them, loved how he could put them there on woman's faces.

This was not one of those stares.

As another shiver went down his back, John thought of different ways to describe the particular scrutiny. He narrowed it down to somewhere between "fuck me till we're both left in a coma for decades," and "I want you more than I want to discover the next element." There was no logical explanation to why that categorization made John want to walk over there and snog the senses out of that sharply defined face, watch those eyes close slowly because the weight of sensation was too overbearing, watch that mouth gasp out his name like a promise.

John decided cooking was soon going to be hazardous if this continued.

He turned off the stove and filled two plates with unsteady hands – whether or not Sherlock would eat was a mystery all its own but it never hurt to prepare – staring at the food for a few quick seconds before chancing a glance at his friend.

Staring straight into those eyes was a mistake. A terrible, awful, exhilarating, suffocating, lust-filled mistake.

Neither man could have anticipated the flooding of electricity as their eyes met fully, sinking into the sort of taught line of wire connecting the two almost painfully, neither said a word, neither could breathe.

There was a sexual vibration that could almost be seen, as easily as the dark blue eyes could see those pale pink lips, those slashingly shadowed cheekbones... that slender neck exposed lushly under fine silk…

Sherlock decided immediately the sight of John cooking was not erotic; it was tame as a kitten compared to this look of unabashed hunger he was privy to now. If only for a few blissfully unadulterated seconds, Sherlock felt he was being undressed and devoured with eyes alone.

John decided simultaneously he was indeed a goner. Hook-line-and-sinker, there was no point in hiding from himself and his friend any longer. Whether it was love or lust, there was no denying it now. He knew how he was staring, knew completely and fully how Sherlock looked back; the two mirrored each other with raw want and almost animalistic need.

Suddenly John's phone buzzed. With a slight jump – when had he lost the ability to hear, the ability to think, the ability to do anything but look? – he checked. Surgeon needed, internal bleeding, immediate assistance required. Duty battled desire and after a tough, uphill battle, the sense of duty won over; it was a tragic victory.

When John looked up, on his way to apologizing or something like that, he found an empty chair. For a few seconds he stood there, a new battle raging inside him; had he imagined all that, or had there truly been a distressingly sexual Sherlock in front of him a moment ago?

With an exasperated sigh he walked briskly out the door, grabbing his coat on the way out. Walking to surgery with a fucking hard-on was going to be an adventure for sure.

From inside the bathroom, where he was in the middle of running fingers over his own throbbing prick, Sherlock heard the door slam shut. In his hazy, desire drugged mind he registered the fact he was alone. But when he closed his eyes he could still see John, like he was permanently sketched into his eyelids. Could almost hear that gasp as their eyes met, like a small sign of acceptance, like he had finally realized what all those compliments, those failed relationships, those calls and texts and insults were meant to convey:_ I want you I need you, touch me, love me, feel me take me just see me don't look, observe and you'll know…_

The final strangled moan erupting from his throat as his vision went red and white and blinding… it sounded a bit too mono-syllabic, a bit too much like a name.

Sherlock crawled into a bed which was not his own and fell into steady breathing with John's smell in his lungs and the sight of that naked desire bright and alive, replaying on a loop. Before falling into the hazy cloud of unconsciousness, he made himself a promise:

He would see that look again, and next time he wouldn't run.


	3. HEAR

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I got extra poetic with this one. Hope you enjoy!

When you live with someone as terrifyingly individual as Sherlock Holmes, you get used to hearing the most outrageous things and replying to them as if someone had simply asked whether or not you take sugar in your tea.

Which shelf does the severed head go on? That'd be the third down, away from the vegetables, thank you.

When was the last time you found a blow-torch left unattended? Actually that was just two days ago, funny story really…

And, his personal favorite: how many appendages a week do you find floating in your coffee? The answer to that is too many, mate. Too many.

John was entirely too used to those types of things and if he thought too much about it he may in fact start to wonder at his own sanity. Then, earlier today, this little gold nugget popped into his head and had been rattling around there for the past hour:

Is it usual for your flat-mate to make moaning noises as he sleeps on the couch?

No. No, actually it isn't.

The doctor had been trying desperately to ignore the deep, sensual noises which had been emanating from the other side of the room, try to just to lose himself in his book, even reading aloud at one point. His mind was having none of that, and instead sent annoying tingles down his spine whenever he heard that soft yet unmistakable "uhhn," omitted from those posh lips. John took a quick glance to make sure the detective was still asleep, which was of course a terrible a mistake. One he was getting entirely too accustomed to making.

Now he got an eyeful of an unabashedly free looking Sherlock. Wanton, even, John thought to himself dizzily.

On rare occasions, the younger man would effectively pass out on the sofa. This was nothing new, happened once or twice a month. Often he would stretch from his normal state of scrunched-up-grumpiness to a much longer, thinner position, as he was now.

Except this time Sherlock's arm was stretched above him, his other was on his hip; this time his chin was propped down on his arm, giving him a terribly young look with those dark lashes brushing against his skin, that dark hair haloing his sculptured face; this time his shirt had ridding up and thus exposed a pale white abdomen, the hint of nicely accented ribs glowing in the light out the window; this time John was looking. He was _really_ looking.

With a ragged inhale, John continued to stare, listening for the soft in and out of that breathe he was sure would taste like honey and ash, perhaps sugar-sweetened coffee as well. Listening for that heartbeat he had missed out on for three years, the one he had waited so patiently to hear again. Listening to those moans resonate out of that long, arching neck like some kind of hail to sinful lust and innocent passions.

Giving in to the fact he had already lost the fight, John closed his eyes and simply concentrated on what he heard, personified them as best he thought he could.

If sounds could touch things, could float through the air all erratic yet graceful like hummingbirds, those moans would be grazing their fingers on the tanned cheek of that doctor. He'd feel – hear - the tips on his temples, moving into his hair to trail through it like some kind of exotic fur. He'd feel –listen – as those moans as they touched his lips, made lazy circles on the skin just below his collar-bone. There'd be nothing in his ears but the flooding of that deep vibrating baritone, like some sickly sweet ballad to the damnably aroused. His own moan pierced the fog-thick tension of the room and he heard a sudden intake of breath, a gasp which was not in fact his own.

Opening his eyes hastily, John could see the eyes of his flat mate focused bright and aware on him. Almost hot under the scrutiny, the ex-soldier stood his ground and held his breath. He could still see a small triangle of pale skin under that thin grey t-shirt, the shadow of a hip bone and the dip of a naval crater. He wanted to know how Sherlock tasted there, would it be sweet like his body wash or salty like sweat? He wanted to know what kind of noises Sherlock would make if – when – John's tongue made a lazy outline of that small blemish then laved at the middle, leaving a small coat of saliva behind to glint in the light like a shining accessory.

As if he could read the mind of his flat-mate, Sherlock's body seemed to tremble and John could hear his shuddering intake of breath, could hear that seemingly untouchable man adjust himself. The man sitting stiffly in the obscenely large arm-chair looked out the window, at the floor, at the cluttered table, anywhere besides his obviously affected friend.

Resting his gaze on the skull on the mantel-piece, John tried consulting it. Why would I effect Sherlock? How could I affect him, me of all people? Really, he couldn't be… no, it wasn't possible… the skull didn't in fact talk back to John but in his mind, as the gears finally stopped turning, transformed into puzzle pieces and simply fell into place, he had his answers.

Sherlock knew the exact moment John realized it. Finally used his eyes and did not simply look; finally used his eyes and dug deeper, observed. He knew the exact moment his friend finally accepted what was practically neon in front of him: Sherlock was attracted to him, in every single sense of the word possible. Not only to his fantastically bright conductions but also his unfaultable sense of loyalty, his deep power and resolve, his humanity, his heart, his love, his body, his… everything. John. It was simply John Sherlock was attracted to, no other.

When he had first woken, he was aware he was in a position of a most exposed nature. He didn't particularly care, often disregarding modesty as just another tedious bit of nonsense the commonwealth occupy themselves with. But when he realized his friend was seated in his chair across the room, Sherlock began to listen. Keeping his eyes closed to keep up the illusion he was still unconscious, he listened for the cool air around the room, the whir of the city outside their windows, the not-entirely-steady in and out of Johns breath… if he listened any harder, he swore he could hear the dust floating in the sunbeams coming through the windows.

Upon hearing John Watson's moan, for the first time he could recall – and Sherlock had never deleted a single solitary moment of John from his mind – an almost violent and painful shock had gone through his nervous system. Like the sound itself had invaded his blood stream through the pores of his skin, wormed their way up and around his vertebrae to wreak havoc in his temples. It was like he throbbed with it, keeping tempo even though it had only been one beat, not even spanning the length of a full quarter note in a four-four time signature.

Now it was just rest upon rest upon bloody rest as the men watched one another.

He felt almost like the fist which had held tight to his lungs finally extracted itself when John looked away. He could breathe, finally, but each inhale tasted sour, sounded wrong. He wanted this man to make him breathless, wanted this man to suck ever bit of oxygen out of him and exhale new life from his own strong lungs. The detective wanted to hear and deduce and memorize every single noise John would make as he sucked at that tanned neck, bit at his muscles and licked that Adams-apple till it bobbed with a moan and a plea for more.

Sherlock had made a promise to himself, a promise that if John ever looked at him with that unabashed hunger again he would act upon it and choose for the both of them; the decision he knew his friend was waiting for him to make.

Rising swiftly from his position on the couch, Sherlock took three long strides till he came to kneel right in front of his doctor, colleague, friend. When John's ocean eyes – at what moment had Sherlock started to appreciating that needless expansion of salty-blue? – snapped to meet his cool grey, the detective took a small intake of breath. He heard John exhale deeply as the long, pale fingers came up to frame his face, tracing thumbs over cheeks while fingers played with the short crop of that ashen-blonde hair.

And because this man mattered more than the stars and the solar system, Sherlock waited.

One… _give him a chance to refuse, _he thought as he watched every single detail on that rugged face.

Two… _you have to give him time, _he lectured himself as he slowly began leaning in, his own heart beating like a bass drum in his ears.

Three… _oh please don't let him refuse, _he begged as he felt that breath on his own cupid-bow lips.

Hesitating only for a brief second to watch those wondrous pupils dilate, Sherlock heard that breathy moan and lost all control.

The final thing he thought he heard before sensation laid siege was, _finally._


	4. TASTE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The big start of the smuttiest two chapters. Here’s the beginning of the end, leave a comment if you please, they make me super happy!
> 
> Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is *clap* all *clap* smut SO enjoy yourself!

When you're first-born, everything is new. Your senses are overwhelmed, essentially taking in everything as it is thrown at you, like a puppy being trained simultaneously how to sit, stay, beg, roll-over, shake and perform stunts with a hoola-hoop. Your mind forces you to forget things, to only remember the experiences it deems important. For example, Sherlock could remember he hated the taste of cough-syrup – more aptly described as pure acid down the throat at the pace of molasses – and peas. He remembered he loved cotton-candy - billowing fluffs of sugar which, at six-years old, he secretly imagined were clouds – and dark chocolate. He remembered those tastes, the joy and the dopamine spikes associated with them, and reveled in them even now.

He could not recall, even in his extensive mass of memory build-up, ever tasting anything like John Watson.

It was a particularly drugging sensation, the feeling of pure John on his lips, on his tongue. Soft yet sure, as if this kiss were simply experimental. But it wasn't, no. There was no experiment here, no way to collect data when the pure sensual pleasure overwhelmed all. Sherlock's full-lips brushed those chapped ones like they were two live wires; he was careful, almost afraid either one of them could spark and electrocute the other with their tightly coiled passions. Two more successful brushes and he felt John's mouth open to draw in a not-so-steady breathe. It was like a song.

Sherlock's tongue peeked out of his own mouth to taste at that bottom lip as it hung temptingly before him; there was the slight hint of mint on the tip of his taste buds, the feeling of the air in that ever-diminishing space between their mouths going heated. That tongue made a lazy sweep from corner to corner, then Sherlock tasted those two dips at the corners, feeling the laugh lines on his friends –Boyfriend? Lover? Amour? – face beneath his cheek. There was something terribly intimate at tasting the corners of John's mouth, a place only the man's own tongue had been, and something inside Sherlock hoped no one else had tasted this before. He wanted to be the first, the only, though he knew he was not.

The need to make John forget every single encounter besides this one was raging - the want to keep John entirely focused on the now, just as helplessly focused as he was. It spread through Sherlock like a wildfire. Suddenly the hunger consumed him, built him up yet broke him down into animalistic passion. Without a second thought to delicacy, Sherlock's tongue swept in between those still parted lips to plunder there roughly. Twin moans from both men rumbled out and it was like the steel-plated dam had broken.

There was the brief wisp of a thought here, the faintly glowing observation there, but other than those truly rare images, Sherlock's mind had gone alarmingly blank. It was as though he had only ever had chalk to use on the board of his mind, and John had had the eraser all along. More likely, John was the eraser.

The questions were the only things other than the repetitive notion of _JohnJohnJohn _vibrating in his mind. Questions such as, when had John's mouth been infused with sweet wine? How long could the taste of strawberry jam remain on the roof of it? Could one person cause another to physically choke from this invasive kissing? Sherlock hoped desperately the answer was no to the last, as he never wanted to stop exploring this cavern of novelty, of infinitely unique tastes. There had to be some kind of alcoholic quality to this, some kind of drug dissolved onto the slick walls of John's mouth. There had to be an explanation to this utter dizziness Sherlock felt, to the way he wanted to both rest here forever but move on to taste the man's every pore, ever bump or scar, ever blemished yet perfect inch. There was nothing Sherlock didn't want at that moment, short of being stopped now.

He doubted he could even if he tried.

If John had to compare it to anything, later he would say it was like kissing some kind of storm. Sometimes you could taste the eye and it was this honey-smooth, quietly sexual mix. The next second it would be all exotic spices, unadulterated wilderness and lava-laced scorching of tongues battling for dominance. He brought his hands up to grab onto the front of Sherlock's shirt, held on though he knew he was wrinkling that silk. Groaning, he let those lurid thought he had been indulging in earlier flood back like a tidal wave.

"God, Sherlock," it was somewhere between a plea and a promise, as though John had lost all knowledge of words and been reduced to a single driving thought, a single neuron repeating that one name over and over like it was encoded on the inner-most genetic messages. Maybe the genius' being was truly a part of John's now, as their tongues tangled for dominance. John broke away from that scorching mouth to trail lazy, sampling kisses and licks from throat to collar. He pulled at that posh shirt to try and find the secret delicacies which his in the nook between pectoral muscles, the beginnings of sweat tasting lightly salty under his plundering tongue.

The gasp and thrust the ex-soldier felt made him hot. The look he saw when he glanced back up, tongue laving at a pure-skin tasting nipple, made him humble.

Kissing a light trail up to that mouth once more, John sucked at that full lower lip like it was made of ambrosia; it tasted like immortality.

He sighed as Sherlock's hesitant tongue came out to outline his lips, instinctively parting them for this man he could never say no to, subconsciously or not. There was a lighter air dancing between them now, something which now waltzed with the need and found common denominators in the men's hearts.

When he felt Sherlock's hands frame his face, John sucked lightly at the tongue in his mouth. When he felt those dexterous fingers make their way into his hair and tug, it was his turn to moan. When the hands left his head to crawl lazily under his jumper, circling his shoulder blades, John felt his back arch to meet them.

This was a game of exploration, one Sherlock was becoming better and better at playing.

Slowly removing the doctor's jumper, the detective took a moment to observe and deduce anything he could from those scars, those muscles, those small bits of hair which trailed down from the man's abdomen to places Sherlock had yet to see… a sharp knife of desire penetrated his stomach and Sherlock nearly moaned just from the teasing view of what lie ahead. But did John want that?

"John, I-"Whatever he was going to say turned into a whimper, a weak surrender to the biting teeth at his neck.

With that silk cover off and on the floor, keeping the discarded jumper company, John was free to taste at those hidden places. The shadow of ribs tasted like the warmth of a sun, abdominal muscles tasted like rainwater, that tempting belly button tasted like pure Sherlock. He felt the rumble of a groan against his cheek as his tongue played inside that hole, felt the hands in his hair suddenly pull up.

Apply one soft kiss to John's fantastically clever lips before moving on to that strong jaw, those well-muscled shoulders, and those ever-sharp ears. He pulled teasingly at one lobe, feeling the gasp on his own neck. His mouth stopped moving and his heart nearly stopped beating as he heard John's whispered plea, in a voice not entirely steady.

"Touch me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your reading, leave a comment if you feel the inclination! I eat em up nom nom.


	5. TOUCH

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And there it is folks! Hope you enjoyed, special thanks to 2014-me for writing it all so I could post it now! 
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment, I love em.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same warnings as last, friends. It all be hot and steamy, enjoy!

Studying a hand is not the same as feeling one.

When you look closely upon a hand, regardless of its owner, it's like a world in its own right; the caverns created by breaks and lines in the skin, knuckle-high hills and wrinkled sand dunes connecting the branching phalanges, holding them together. Turning the palm over, there is a new land, a new expanse to explore and to exploit.

The lines where your fingers have bent to close in on themselves, to create fists, to simply hold tight to something, mark every separate appendage with lines of one or two or three. The palm is a story-book; it has the power to tell you your future or your past, your life or your death.

Sherlock had hidden away, in some dimly lit, dusty room in the West Wing of his Mind Palace, the instructions and information needed to read the palm. He decided to save that particularly unreliable deductive strategy for another day.

Instead, he pressed his lips to the space between John Watson's life line and his death line. It tasted like infinity there, and inside deep, inside the recesses of his once frosted-heart, Sherlock vowed to prolong the first as long as humanly possible, even if it take his own in the process. If there was ever someone to die for, it was this man.

John gave a low groan as the usually sharp tongue left the hidden cavern of that full-lipped mouth to play a pattern on the palm below it.

Wondering briefly whether any of the man's past lovers had given such scrutiny to these strong hands before, Sherlock shuddered at the thought his mouth was brushing, feeling, something that was unchartered. It humbled him, broke that terribly strong iron casing around his not-so-sociopathic heart as though it were made of twigs. Much like that home which the first 'little pig' had built to protect himself from a huffing wolf, Sherlock's defenses were blown down. Except the only place he had to go, ever had to go, was towards John.

Putting down the hand yet still holding firmly to it, Sherlock bent to sample the taste and feel of his doctor's face below his lips. John's eye-lashes tasted like the brush of a feather, his lids like jasmine crepe-paper. There were splotches of sugar and sunshine on the shorter man's cheeks, hidden springs of wine and wild-berries at the cleft in his chin, the line of his jaw. There was the lingering taste of mint and jam at the enclave between nose and lip. Sherlock gave in to a needy moan as the feeling, the touch of pure John filled his nerves when their lips finally collided.

Tongues battled for dominance, sucking and slicking and stretching to find every hidden bit of wonder inside the others mouth. Hands, in contrast, were reverently slow.

As if the bodies below them were brittle or fragile, likely to wither and crumble when pressured or punctured, fingers moved like feathers. It was slow, a tide coming in. John's left hand trembled but he knew it wasn't from something intermittent, it was the feeling of slowly lowering that zipper, it was kissing his way down that long body as the gasps and moans floated down into his ears to bang on the drums hidden inside there. It was the ignition of something hot, something that went straight to his already throbbing cock, when those finely built hips bucked forward, trying to find that mouth again. John gave in to this clawing need to take as he ran his tongue over Sherlock's hardness, still enclosed in fine white pants. He felt fingers in his hair, almost massaging his scalp. Taking a deep breath, sweat and skin and Sherlock permeating his lungs, those doctoral fingers pulled down the waist-band.

Sherlock felt everything.

It should have been terribly overwhelming, uncomfortable, even frightening but it wasn't, not anything close; it was a cascade of a never-ending everything, swirling and churning around him, in him, on him. In no way was it unpleasant, this hyper-awareness of his own body as opposed to the usual scrutiny and attention he paid his surroundings. He could feel all the touches of Johns tongue on his hip, on his pelvis, on the small expanse of skin which dwelled between naval and pubic bone.

No, in no way was this unpleasant.

Then there was the tentative warmth of a tongue on the head of his cock and Sherlock gasps, his hips bucking involuntarily as they demanded more of that electricity, the one which lit multi-coloured Christmas lights inside the genius' mind. Feeling a teasing tongue roll its tip over the slit, Sherlock moaned and his fingers sought purchase in that short ashen hair. Suddenly there was a flattened wetness and heat trailing a long streak up the length of his throbbing member and with that Sherlock closed his eyes tightly and omitted a trembling, "fuck."

Juxtaposing the long, torturous licks which now became rhythmic on his near-painful hardness was the circling of John Watson's thumbs on the inner-side of his thighs. It was as if John was trying to leave some sort of coded message on his skin, some sort of calligraphy formed in finger-print shapes and the crescent-shaped accents of nails. As his clever soldier engulfed the head of his cock, the detective's head swam in a river, or an ocean, or perhaps it was just John he swam in now; he felt completely engulfed by the man, ruled by sensation. It was as liberating as it was dominating.

Truly it was trivial where his mind had gone as long as his body was here to feel; as if there were any kind of choice. As Sherlock felt the telltale broiling of release race through his body like a firestorm he gave a quick tug to that short ashen-hair, his head leaned back with eyes languidly closed. He felt the mouth around his lazily remove itself with an almost comical "pop" sound, then there was the light touch of fingernails tracing his cheekbones. Moving into the touch, he wondered how long it could take to remove the remaining garments which adorned his extraordinarily fascinating doctor.

John was too busy, too focused and engrossed in the education of himself in Sherlock's body to even think of his own needs. Later this would become a revelation; sure, in the past he was a slow lover, taking pleasure in the pleasure of his partner. But now, with Sherlock, it was as though they had undergone some kind of role reversal, or he had unintentionally absorbed some bit of that analytically driven detective though deep kisses and the exchange of breath. Now, he certainly wanted to be slow and tender but he also wanted to explore every single enclave, every dip of muscle and bone, ever dot of freckle or birthmark. He was the worst kind of pioneer, one which would happily get lost and live in the undiscovered territory for weeks, months, years, with no thought to anything but the sheer pleasure of the landscape.

John was lost in Sherlock.

His fingers traveled over that alabaster skin they traced the shadows thrown from those slashing cheekbones, the pale pink lips still wet from Sherlock's own tongue, the dark eyebrows and ever-youthful forehead. Using the delicacy of a doctor, he ran fingertips over still-closed eyelids and traced the almond shape of them. Almost as though he had been woken slowly from an incredibly good dream, Sherlock's eyes opened languidly. The two men's gaze locked on and held, each dictating without words their own separate battles of emotions and sentiment, want and admiration. John leaned in slowly till only the space of a hair remained between them. Eyes holding that connection, he waited for Sherlock to give some sort of recognition to this gesture: 'this is it,' he tried to say with his eyes. 'Yes or no?'

As if he heard it all, Sherlock gave a brief roll of his eyes in mock exasperation before colliding their lips together in a hungry kiss of tongue and teeth and hard demand.

Whether they walked or ran or even floated Sherlock didn't know; they fell into his bed and as John licked his palm. Sherlock didn't care how they had gotten here, as long as he never left this place below his lover, feeling that wet palm wrap around him, stroking from base to head. John's teeth were on that leanly muscled shoulder, making a routine, a physical mantra out of _bite, suck, lick. _

With labored breath and sugar-scented sweat invading his nostrils, Sherlock batted the hand on his cock away only to replace it with his long fingered one, simultaneously taking John's prick in his hand as well. Precome a natural lubricant, the doctor and the detective moaned in tandem. Licking the edge of Sherlock's ear and nipping at the lobe as those dexterous fingers rubbed a thumb over the slit of his throbbing hardness, John's hips thrust into the fisted tightness. There was a tingling over his body, a desperate need which almost stung him. As his brunette counterpart stroked harder and faster, they were reduced to gasping sighs and fervent moans of "God, please, yes."

John felt Sherlock begin to shake, felt that well-muscled back arch beneath him; the fire in those ice eyes as John watched the great genius come undone was enough to push him over the edge. Taking hold over the hand between them as it trembled, he buried his face in that long pale neck; repeating the only words that mattered, the ones that touched along every inch of that long body, writing itself in firing nerve-cells and burning into bone marrow.

"I love you, love you so much."

And when Sherlock breathe again, it was the scent of him. It was that man with the ocean-eyes he saw smiling restfully beside him, it was the touch of those tanned hands on his cheek he fell asleep to.

It was always John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your reading, leave a comment if you feel the inclination! I eat em up nom nom.


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